“Microsoft on Monday announced a version of Windows that runs over the Internet from inside Microsoft’s own data centers,” Ina Fried reports for CNET.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, boy. That sounds like it’ll work just wonderfully! Shudder.
Freid continues, “Dubbed Windows Azure, it’s less a replacement for the operating system that runs on one’s own PC than it is an alternative for developers, intended to let them write programs that live inside Microsoft’s data centers as opposed to on the servers of a given business.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft Azure. For all the data you really don’t mind losing.
Freid continues, “The company itself plans to offer businesses the option of running over the Internet the kinds of software that have traditionally run on a company’s own servers. Microsoft already sells its Exchange corporate e-mail software in this way, but that is just the beginning, said Microsoft vice president Dave Thompson.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HMCIV” for the heads up.]
From Apple Mac OS X Leopard’s built-in systemwide New Oxford American Dictionary:
azure:
az•ure |ˈa zh ər|
adjective
bright blue in color, like a cloudless sky…
noun
a bright blue color.
• poetic/literary the clear sky.
Only Microsoft would name their cloud computing product after a cloudless sky.
However, when you think about it, Microsoft’s calling it “Azure” does actually make perfect sense: Windows users would hope to connect to Microsoft’s cloud, but there would no cloud available, so all they’d see would be nothing but a blue screen. As usual.
And the bright blue in color is the blue screen of death!!!!!
No room to gloat on Apple’s behalf on the subject of “cloud” computing. Jeez…
in a world without walls, only a madman wants a window.
in an azure sky, only a fool wishes for a cloud.
only the truly psychotic take pictures of these clouds through these windows.
The big difference between Mobile Me and Azure is that Apple isn’t asking you to put your mission critical data on their servers. Schedules and distributed email are one thing, as you can access those in different ways if you lose internet connectivity. How much money will your business lose if you can’t access information that you’ve chosen to place outside of your total control?
I don’t know, it could be called just “sky” computing as in “through the airwaves,” no one said it has to be “cloudy.”
I think MDN is just nitpicking, the name is fine.
hummm…ok,Azure,whats next,the Zune “Blue screen of Death“.
Once everything is cloud computing, MS users will be referring to the azure screen of death.
I wonder how torturous the “brainstorming” meetings must be for things like this at Microsoft. It must be so, so, so bad. The types of people in their meetings, and listening to the ideas being thrown around along with their reasoning behind them.
It’s committees like these that create Brown colored MP3 players, and name their “cloud” something that means no clouds.
Brilliant naming scheme!!…M$ has done it yet again…almost compares to the exceptional “Longhorn” or “Me”
Ballmer is a genius! Ballmer is a rock star!
He’ll be the first sleepover for Obama.
Hey this must mean Microsoft’s future isn’t so cloudy anymore.
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Let’s hope they remember to install anti-virus.
No, the name isn’t fine. It gives Microsoft critics and competitors two extremely easy targets to mock—cloudless and BSOD. There’s no need for Microsoft to make things so easy.
If it’s more reliable than my me.com then I wish ’em luck.
will it be available in brown?
Trusting critical information to M$ and the Internet is doubly dangerous.
The name makes sense. Using Windows makes people feel blue.
Sounds fishy to me. Why would a large corp want to leave their in-house developed vertical applications and repurpose them to work on Microsoft Data Centers?
And it will be released when? Over time. And it will const how much? Don’t ask. And it the fees will go on for how long? Forever! Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
And just what does this precipitate?
@Darkness:
Ask all of the people whose contacts, calendars, and e-mails were lost via MobileMe how much money they lost.
Thank for clarification Opportun…
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Why don’t MS just call it FART. I mean its all just a bunch of gas whenever MS comes out with something.
What a hackers delight! Millions of corporate emails, attachments, calendars.
Microsoft is just attempt to leverage the BSOD color to frighten customers into accepting their vision of the future. Everything will run in the cloud because that’s what customers’ want. They are tired of our crappy software crashing and them losing their work, with cloud computing the BSOD and lost work will be a thing of the past. So, say Microsoft.
The question is who will you trust your personal and corporate data with? (Microsoft?, Google?, Yahoo?, AOL?, Amazon??) I don’t trust any of them myself and I think the complete notion of cloud computing replacing the desktop computer is a bunch of sh*t. For Companies big and small we’re talking about a major Service Vendor lock-in not just for the length of the contract but, for life… A good deal for the service providers like MS looking for the reoccurring revenues.
As a business owner I wouldn’t give someone our data to host, let alone become the only source for creating, editing, viewing and storage of that data. The data once locked to Microsoft, Google, Amazon or anyone else, looses all portability and the data and company become dependent on that provider of cloud services. Think of Cloud computing services as unique individual small production run cars, available by lease only, like GMs EV1. You don’t own anything (and depending on the agreement, you might even loose ownership of your own data). If the Company, (Microsoft, Google…) determined that the service was not profitable any longer and they closed it all down (like turning of their DRM Server) or made they just raised the rates by 10000%. If you or your business were dependent on that service your SOL. You’re out buying new computers and software and scrambling to convert or recreate what data you have and get it into a usable portable format again.
Cloud Computing is companies like Microsoft’s wet dream (like the Big Music Labels wet dream is forcing everyone into a music subscription format with extra heavy DRM). Continues reoccurring payments from companies and people so locked into the cloud computing pipe dream that they just have to keep on paying no matter how much the cost goes up.
If you have a music subscription service then you are a Cloud computing evangelist and true believer in cloud computing under the MS vision and you think locking yourself to MS is better then getting left out no matter what it ends costing over the life span of the fad.
I think the MS team needs to walk down the street to Starbucks before their meetings and wake up. Or stop asking for the brandy in their morning coffee.
The Dude abides.